Imtiaz Patel, Deputy Head of Madani Schools’ Federation, talks to us about the positive impact of former students.

We are a federation of two schools, Madani Boys School and Madani Girls School. The schools are relatively small, both with ‘good’ Ofsted ratings and high student performance, especially in the Girls School. We’re an Islamic faith school with students from many different ethnic backgrounds and approximately one third of our students on free school meals.

Through joining Future First I’d like to see former students who work in a range of employment sectors and job fields to come in and speak to our young people through events like assemblies, award evenings and careers fairs. It would also be valuable to use our alumni to help our current students in arranging work experience placements depending on the expertise and support the alumni can offer.

The main alumni event we’ve had since joining Future First was during our awards evening where former students were invited back to speak to our young people. They came in and spoke about their challenges and their journeys since leaving the schools which hopefully left the students feeling inspired. The audience was not only filled with students receiving awards but also with parents and other members of the community who could see the impact that bringing former students back could have on the schools.

The alumni who returned to the schools included a GP and an Accountant. They were able to talk about what they’d learned from their time at school and how we supported them going forward with their careers. They’d both left the school about 10 years ago which was good because they were able to give a bit more of a comprehensive journey of their time since leaving.

I want our current students to be aspirational through having access to alumni role models and I want our alumni to be able to support the students in making well informed careers based decisions. It’s great for our young people to see live case studies of former students who once sat in their stools and on their chairs; seeing what they’ve gone on to do, taking different pathways within their career journeys. It’s also a brilliant opportunity for us as a school to be able to see our former students and keep up to date with what they’ve gone on to do.

If you’d like more information about Future First membership, email us at info@futurefirst.org.uk